


I'll Always Be a Stranger

by shrinking_universe



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Feelings, Humour, M/M, humour AND feelings!, or: crowley and the mortifying ordeal of being known, our boy crowley is a lil stupid but aren't we all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 03:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19821826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrinking_universe/pseuds/shrinking_universe
Summary: Aziraphale makes a casual comment about Crowley being harmless, which freaks Crowley out. Because he's an idiot, his response is to try to prove Aziraphale wrong by doing Evil Deeds.But here's the thing: he sucks at it.





	I'll Always Be a Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> I DEADASS was going to name this fic "Crowley and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known" but then I saw that others had basically used that name for GO fics already and since I didn't wanna look like a copycat I just put it in the tags.
> 
> I ended up taking the title from a song called "4000 Years" by Django Django which is a VERY fitting song to this fic, give it a listen.
> 
> Enjoy!

Crowley drummed his fingers on the wheel of his newly restored Bentley in agitation. He wasn’t sure where he was driving. Not that the destination mattered anyway. He was just trying to think while somehow simultaneously trying _not_ to think because his mind couldn’t seem to shut up and come up with anything useful.

It felt odd. Everything felt odd. Especially driving around London anxiously and trying to do some useful thinking. He’d gotten quite used to this kind of activity being linked with the previously-impending Apocalypse because that’s what he (and Aziraphale) had mostly done during it. Now that there was no Apocalypse, it was just him… driving around anxiously.

He’d just dropped Aziraphale back to his shop after having had a nice dinner with him. A perfectly good dinner. Nothing bad had happened, but something Aziraphale had said bothered him and now he was, as expressed, driving around anxiously.

* * *

“Did you have a nice day yesterday?” Aziraphale had asked him politely as they dined.

“Mm, it was alright. I caused all the trains departing from London to be late by twenty minutes,” Crowley had replied.

The main reason he’d done it was because he’d been so bored. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the reason he’d been so bored was because Aziraphale had been busy that day. Six thousand years of seeing his face and he still missed him if a single solitary day passed.

“That was _you?”_ Aziraphale asked, sounding put out. “It was such a nuisance!”

“Oh,” Crowley said in surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it affected you.”

“It did. I had to take two trains, but I missed the second one because the first one was late, and it was a bit of a hassle,” Aziraphale replied tartly.

“That’s why I did it. People hate a hassle,” Crowley said, smiling to himself, until he remembered what they were talking about. “I didn’t know you were going anywhere. I thought you said you were going to be busy with books, so I assumed you’d be in your shop, reading. Reverently looking at your books. Or whatever it is you do.”

“I was meeting a book dealer in Birmingham,” Aziraphale explained.

“Ah, well,” Crowley shrugged.

He wanted to say ‘I could have driven you there’ but he wasn’t sure how Aziraphale would react to that considering that last time he’d suggested something like that - some fifty years ago - he’d received a response that had left him reeling and holding a thermos flask in confusion.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you were taking a train,” he said instead.

“I know, my dear,” Aziraphale said, softening instantly. “I forgive you. After all this time, I know for certain you’d never mean to do me any actual harm. Or anyone, really, for that matter.”

Then he’d gone back to his raviolis as if he hadn’t said anything significant.

* * *

But he was a _demon,_ for fuck’s sake. Demons did harm! And here was Aziraphale, going around forgiving him and saying he’s harmless. Crowley could just about accept Aziraphale telling him that he was a bit of a good person underneath _,_ but how could he dare say he _knew_ what Crowley would and wouldn’t do?

The angel had said it with such assurance. Crowley didn’t like it.

If he was ‘harmless’, what would be left of him? All his life, his job had been to do harm. And while maybe some (most) demons would say that he hadn’t been very good at his job, he’d still done it in his own way. It was his purpose. And then there’d been the Apocalypse to focus on.

Oh, he was very happy his and Aziraphale’s respective head offices had left them alone and that the world hadn’t ended, don’t get him wrong. But this calm, mundane aftermath had him confused. If he was free to do what he wanted, what was it that he was supposed to do? Or be?

Of course he would do harm. That was who he was. And of course he would mean it. Aziraphale was wrong, and Crowley would somehow prove it.

**********

If Crowley had been inclined to use his head properly he might have realised that he was having a perfectly normal and expected midlife crisis. Except it wasn’t really a midlife crisis at all. It was an immortal, post-apocalyptic existential crisis.

If he’d understood this, he might have inspected his feelings further and seen that actually, the problem had almost nothing to do with the Apocalypse-that-almost-was. In reality, he was scared of the implications of someone else knowing him so well. Scared, too, that the ‘someone’ was only accepting him for what they _thought_ he was, and if they _really_ knew him and his faults, they wouldn’t want him after all.

But alas, as it was, Crowley tended to be a bit of an idiot. So he decided to drive home to do some scheming.

* * *

A couple of days later Crowley sauntered into Aziraphale’s bookshop and sat down in one of his chairs with a flourish.

“Oh, hello,” Aziraphale said, lifting his head from a book and smiling at him sweetly, not having expected his visit but seeming to appreciate it.

Crowley tried to ignore the smile and the feelings it caused in him in favour of focusing on the reason he’d come.

“Been outside today yet?” he asked.

“No, why?” Aziraphale enquired.

“Because I’ve done something,” Crowley said purposefully vaguely. “Which you’ll find out about later. Maybe on the news, or if you go out.”

“Alright then,” Aziraphale said pleasantly and, when Crowley didn’t elaborate, went back to his book.

Crowley stared at him silently in disappointment. Annoyed by Aziraphale’s calm indifference, he changed his mind and decided to tell about his deed right now.

“See what a sunny, hot day it is? Well, I changed all the weather forecasts to say it would be full on pouring down with rain today. And cold as Hell. But since it’s actually a sunny day, everyone has been lugging around umbrellas for no reason and now they’re sweating in their warm jackets.”

Crowley smiled to himself and looked pointedly at the street through the shop’s windows, where a man was shrugging himself out of a thick overcoat.

“Now why have you done that?” Aziraphale asked, not sounding as shocked as Crowley had hoped.

Crowley stood up quickly, drawing the angel’s gaze to him.

“Because you were _wrong!”_ Crowley said with such unexpected vehemence in his voice that Aziraphale finally looked startled.

“About what?” Aziraphale said, looking lost.

“ _Me!”_ Crowley hissed. “You said, you _presumed_ …”

Suddenly realising how emotional he was fast becoming, Crowley swallowed the rest of his sentence and glared at Aziraphale instead.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said to himself, tilting his head to look up at the ceiling and frowning. He seemed to be recollecting their conversations. “Was it… don’t tell me you’re upset about me saying you’re-“

“I’m not upset,” Crowley said quickly.

“Of course,” Aziraphale nodded dubiously.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Crowley didn’t actually want to talk about this. He’d only come here to show what he’d done, so the angel could see he’d been wrong.

“But…,” Aziraphale started after a while, smiling hesitantly, “all you’ve done is cheer up everyone’s day. I think you’ll find that people are more pleasantly surprised at the good weather in this otherwise dismal climate than _upset_ about it.”

Crowley thought about it for a short moment.

“Shit,” he said, realising the angel was right, and promptly left the shop.

* * *

Crowley realised he should obviously have done the reverse: change the forecast to say it would be sunny and then ruin everyone’s day when it turned out to be rainy. So he decided to do that plan. It wouldn’t take any evil points away from him, did it, if he just redid his previous plan?

While he waited for a good, abysmally dreary day to come, he decided to try some other misdeeds. In a stroke of ingenuity, he made himself a BBC executive and cancelled a beloved and long-lasting soap opera that half the nation watched.

It turned out to backfire on him when he remembered that _he_ sometimes watched that show whenever he grew tired of rewatching Golden Girls for the hundredth time. And to add to it, it turned out not to be such a harmful deed because the actors who had been roped into acting the same characters for years found themselves suddenly at complete freedom to pursue new artistic directions.

However, not discouraged by his failure, he thought some good old traffic mischief would always go down better. Or, worse, technically. Whichever way you looked at it. In any case, he snuck into the traffic safety committee and pushed the decision to add bus stops around the busy areas. He thought it was a great idea because not only would people hate it when their bus journey time lengthened because the bus stopped all the time, but it also wouldn’t affect him this time because he barely used the bus.

But then, upon reading the papers, he saw that he’d accidentally improved road safety. The buses speeded less when they had to stop more frequently, and elderly people were able to access the buses more often. Really, he should have seen it coming considering the committee was literally a safety committee, but he’d assumed people got nothing useful done in those.

To add to the injury, he soon saw that the buses slowing down also slowed down the rest of the traffic – a fact which he learned one tardy Sunday afternoon, swearing in his car when he got stuck at an intersection for what felt like a millennium.

That was it. He was officially done with traffic related things.

* * *

After a couple of other equally embarrassing attempts and failures, the dreadfully rainy day finally came. Crowley entered Aziraphale’s bookshop again, hoping that this time he’d definitely see the harm he’d done.

If Aziraphale hadn’t noticed it was raining outside, he would now, because Crowley was dripping all over the floor. He’d forgotten that it was going to be rainy and had gotten soaked himself. You see, the forecast had said it was going to be sunny.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said in sympathy when he saw him. “Would you like hot cocoa? It’s pouring down, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Crowley shouted, nodding and pointing at the angel. “Not to the cocoa. But it is pouring!”

“Thought it would be a sunny day,” Aziraphale said absently. Then he looked at Crowley sharply. “Wait.”

Crowley nodded again, looking grave now. Now would come the time when Aziraphale would understand what a mean, harmful demon he was, and he would despise him like he should.

“I see. You’re still having your tantrum,” Aziraphale said instead. He did look a little annoyed, but not in the way that Crowley had assumed. More like in a way a person looked at another when they were throwing a tantrum. Which he wasn’t.

“Tantrum?!” Crowley sputtered. “I’m a demon! Demons don’t throw tantrums.”

“I’m quite sure demons invented tantrums,” Aziraphale said pointedly, raising his eyebrows. “I just don’t see why these abundant, contrived little ‘evils’ are necessary,” he added when Crowley had only frowned in lieu of reply.

“I’m not doing this because it’s ‘necessary’,” Crowley said sourly. “I’m doing this because it’s who I am.”

Aziraphale tutted quietly, tilted his head ever so slightly to the right and wiggled his shoulders a little. This strange combination of gestures seemed to Crowley to say ‘Are you sure?’ without actually needing to say it out loud.

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale asked anyway.

* * *

To prove that he wasn’t having a tantrum, Crowley said yes to Aziraphale’s invitation to have some coffee and tea the next day. As they were standing in the queue in a busy coffeeshop, Crowley saw his chance to do something. It occurred to him that he should try doing something that would directly affect Aziraphale as well, because maybe then he would understand Crowley’s point better.

He miracled a little bug into the cash register, causing the computer to freeze and making all transactions impossible for a while. He smiled as the people in front of them let out a groan of annoyance.

“Looks like we won’t get any drinks here. Nor anyone for that matter,” Crowley said casually to Aziraphale.

“Oh well,” Aziraphale said. “There is a new, independent coffeeshop on the other side of the street that I wanted to visit anyway. We could go there, this coffeeshop chain won’t notice a loss this small in sales anyway. And in turn, I believe the people in the new shop will be delighted.”

“Stop doing that!” Crowley said loudly, drawing the other patrons’ eyes to them. Crowley ignored them since everyone thought they were a bickering couple anyway and he was used to it. Besides, he was too angry to suppress his words. “You’re doing that on purpose!”

“Doing what on purpose?” Aziraphale asked with a huff.

“That!” Crowley said, gesturing to him. ‘Making him look like he was a good person on purpose who never wanted to cause harm’ was what he thought but didn’t say out loud because he assumed Aziraphale would get it.

Maybe he did get it, because he tried to change the subject. “Come on now, let’s go and have coffee elsewhere.”

“No! You’re being insufferable!” Crowley complained.

“ _I’m_ being insufferable?” Aziraphale said with dry disbelief.

“This is what I do!” Crowley insisted instead of answering Aziraphale’s rebuke because he was sort of aware of the fact that he was indeed being insufferable himself. But wasn’t that the point? He was trying to be as insufferable as possible, so Aziraphale would see that and consequently understand how hateful he was.

In that moment, if you asked him, he wasn’t entirely sure anymore what exactly he was trying to prove to the angel. But it didn’t matter, because he was too vexed to think clearly. All he knew at that moment was that he should do something bolder, something worse. Because that would work, somehow.

The uncomfortable feeling in his stomach as he stormed out of the coffeeshop and left a confused and dejected Aziraphale standing there alone was meant to be a good sign, wasn’t it? A good sign of things going badly?

* * *

It turned out that causing real harm was hard. It was difficult to think of anything that would harm people without actually harming anyone. Surely there was _something._

Crowley had gone around causing small mayhem by scaring people with his snake form for a couple of days, but it wasn’t exactly effective and it got boring at some point. In fact, it mostly offended him when people got scared of his snake’s head. What was so bad about snakes? Aziraphale didn’t find his snake form scary or disgusting.

Damn Aziraphale.

Crowley shook his head to himself as he walked around the edge of St James’s Park. It felt weird to hang around there without the angel, but since he and the angel frequented the park so often when they had problems to solve, he’d supposed he could go there for inspiration.

Right. Something evil.

Hurting children was out. So was murdering them, obviously, or murder in general. Murder was sort of fun as a concept but to commit it himself? Nah, best leave it to the humans. Unless they were Nazis. Those he didn’t mind killing. But that didn’t count as an evil deed, so it was out.

What else was there? Arson? That was more up Hastur’s alley. And yet, as much as he’d hate to take inspiration from Hastur, it was the only thing he could think of that sounded doable.

To his surprise, before he’d really had time to decide to do anything, he saw Aziraphale strolling along the same street where he was standing. In fact, he was walking right towards Crowley without having spotted him yet. It seemed the angel had found himself gravitating towards the park as well.

Crowley started panicking slightly. He should do something bad _right now_ , since the angel would be able to witness it.

Arson. Yup, arson it would be. He really couldn’t come up with anything else.

He glanced around quickly for something to set fire to. He spotted a falafel stand away from the park, across the street. The owner was missing, having probably taken a quick break. Perfect. That would do. He would just cause a little fire, nothing too grand but evil enough, surely.

He had to focus his mind a little for this trick because unlike Hastur, he wasn’t used to these kinds of things. If he had been, he probably would have known how to control the fire a bit more so as to not set it ablaze completely.

But because he wasn’t, the falafel stand erupted in a massive, roaring flame, and to make things worse it kind of exploded because Crowley hadn’t considered the fact that the falafels were cooked in oil and the oil made the fire spread even more.

What was especially unfortunate was that Crowley also hadn’t noticed that the falafel stand was almost directly in front of a recently opened library. A library, that had one of its windows open. Open enough for the flames to lick their way inside and spread amongst all the kindling.

“Oh shit. Oh God. Satan. Whoever,” Crowley cursed to himself when he saw how royally he’d fucked up. That wasn’t what he’d intended to do at all.

He turned around to glance behind him in panic. Maybe Aziraphale hadn’t seen it and it would be fine-

Oh, _shit,_ the angel was staring right at him with a blank look.

Feeling his body freeze while his heart jumped uncomfortably, Crowley realised how bad it all looked. Him burning books, the things that mattered the most to the angel. And Aziraphale _knew_ that Crowley knew how much he valued them, since Crowley had saved his books from a bomb before.

For Satan’s sake, if that wasn’t enough, Aziraphale’s own blasted bookshop had burned down during the whole fiasco with the Apocalypse.

Crowley wanted to crawl into a hole. He didn’t want to see Aziraphale’s reaction, but as he was unable to turn away, he saw the disappointed look Aziraphale directed towards him before turning around and leaving.

“Wait!” Crowley croaked out rather hoarsely. He turned around back and forth a few times. He wanted to run after him, but the library was still on fire and he couldn’t leave it like that when he still probably had time to save the books.

With a sigh, he went to try to undo most of the damage he’d done. He’d catch up to the angel later.

* * *

After circling the park around in his Bentley without finding the angel, Crowley deduced he’d probably gone back to his shop. Which meant that he would just need to go there as well. Easy.

Except it wasn’t.

It wouldn’t be easy – or even possible – to just say he was sorry for acting like an idiot and then just leave the matter there. It was probably beginning to be obvious to both that there was something more going on here.

Crowley put the radio on to calm himself. He quickly switched it off when he realised that the song that was currently on was There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart) by Eurythmics. He knew that putting on his own CD’s wouldn't help either, because with his luck he’d probably end up having to listen to Love of My Life or You’re My Best Friend or something like that.

Which meant that there was no avoiding the issue.

Becoming alarmingly close to tears, Crowley finally admitted to himself that he’d tried to display his worst faults to Aziraphale because he just couldn’t believe that the angel would ever want him as he was. The sooner Aziraphale saw that he was repulsive, the better it was because then he could reject Crowley right away before he fooled himself further.

Crowley gripped the steering wheel, knowing that he was being pathetic, but not able to help it. Aziraphale was so _good_ and kind and so full of love that it made Crowley feel exposed. And now that the Apocalypse was over, they didn’t even have that pretense of being rivals or enemies on opposite sides, which had always felt like a sort of safety net which prevented Crowley from having to face his feelings fully.

As scary as going to the bookshop felt, he knew that he couldn’t prolong it forever and the longer he avoided facing Aziraphale, the longer the angel would think he’d burned those books on purpose and that wasn’t good at all.

* * *

Crowley practically ran inside the bookshop so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. He took a quick look to see where Aziraphale was, and when he spotted him sitting in his favourite armchair, he strode right over to where he was and sat down on the floor at his feet.

Crowley didn’t wear sunglasses for one reason only. Hiding his snake eyes from humans was only a part of it; with Aziraphale he mainly wore them because he didn’t like the vulnerability that came with eye contact. That’s why, even though he was wearing his sunglasses now, he preferred addressing Aziraphale’s legs in order to avoid having to see his expressions as he apologised.

“It wasn’t what it looked like – I didn’t mean to set fire to that library,” he said right away. “It spread there by accident but even then, the only books that got seriously singed were books about gardening, which aren’t that important compared to others because everyone knows you just need to give your plants a good talking to and they’ll grow fine. Who even reads books about gardening?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said calmly, trying to lift Crowley’s head so he could look at him.

Crowley kept his eyes resolutely to the floor.

“I know books matter the most to you, I wouldn’t do something like that, you know.”

“Second most, maybe,” Aziraphale said ponderingly.

“What?”

“I know you didn’t mean it,” Aziraphale said instead of answering.

Crowley blew air from his cheeks and tried not to say anything stupid that would get them back to square one.

“I’m sorry,” he said, because he’d meant to say it anyway at some point.

“Yes. And I forgive you,” Aziraphale said in that unbearably fond tone of his, until he became more serious. “And you should be sorry, but not for the reason you think. I’m not upset at you for all these silly tricks you’ve been pulling. I just don’t understand _why_ you’re doing all this, and I’m… disappointed that you keep trying to prove something to me, or yourself, when you don’t need to do that. You need to stop torturing yourself for nothing.”

Crowley only looked at his own shoes, saw some dirt there, and miracled it away.

“Back at the old hospital, where you turned those paint guns into real weapons,” Aziraphale continued when Crowley didn’t say anything, “I believe that was the last time I doubted your character. As much as you seem to hate to hear it, you’re not evil.”

“But I’m not _good_ , or whatever you see me as,” Crowley protested weakly.

“Oh, dear, I don’t see you as ‘good’ in the Heaven against Hell -sort of sense. Like you’re the definition of virtue, or something like that,” Aziraphale explained. “I just know you, Crowley. I don’t really mind it when you cause a little mischief every now and then for fun because I know that that’s all it is.”

“Ugh, but how do you know anything?” Crowley complained, finally looking up at Aziraphale. “Don’t you ever feel completely lost? We’re so _old,_ Aziraphale. What even are we? Sometimes I find it hard to keep track of myself because I’m so ancient. Like I’m pretending, or playing a role, but I’m not sure what way I’m supposed to play it.”

“Hmm, but isn’t there a comfort in being ancient, as well?” Aziraphale offered. “A comfort in knowing you’ve been on this Earth for so long that you can just surrender to yourself and be what you are while the world changes around you.”

“But what if I don’t always know what I’m supposed to be?” Crowley asked.

“Well, you don’t _have to_ be any one thing. And if you don’t know yet, that’s okay too. As I’ve said, _I_ know you,” Aziraphale said comfortingly.

“Do you really?” Crowley asked, noticing hope in his own voice. The idea didn’t seem to scare him so much anymore.

“I do, my dear,” Aziraphale said tenderly. “And I am not saying it only because we’ve inhabited each other’s bodies for a while. I mean to say that during six thousand years, one learns a thing or two.”

Crowley felt himself deflate, like the wind had been knocked out of him, but in a more pleasant and warm way. With a small smile, he let himself lean against Aziraphale’s legs and rested his head on Aziraphale’s knees.

Aziraphale smiled back at him and, hesitantly, as if not quite daring to do it, put his hand in Crowley’s hair and stroked it slowly.

Crowley closed his eyes in contentment. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, after all, to have someone knowing you so thoroughly so that you don’t have to contrive to be anything. And, very best of all, Aziraphale wasn’t disgusted by what he was or didn’t have any misguided views of him. The very thought of it made his heart flutter – it meant that _if_ Aziraphale had feelings for him too, he might be able to accept them and reveal his own feelings, too.

“So, you admit it?” Aziraphale asked after some time.

“What?”

“You _were_ throwing a tantrum before.”

“I’m already trying to forget that it ever happened, thank you,” Crowley said dryly.

“Oh, sorry about that. Would dinner distract you?” Aziraphale suggested.

“Not yet,” Crowley said. If snakes could purr, he would: Aziraphale’s hand was still in his hair and he had never felt anything better in his ancient old life. “I don’t feel like going anywhere yet,” he admitted.

Aziraphale hummed and nodded in understanding.

“Me neither.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it and I'm really sorry if someone else has written something similar. I remember reading almost all the Good Omens fics there were on AO3 some years ago, so now that there are A LOT MORE new fics I'm so overwhelmed that I haven't read almost any of them (I will though).
> 
> But hey tell me if you liked this!! or your thoughts, whatever! I loove comments.


End file.
